The Other Side of the Sanders Coin
by myboygeorge
Summary: After almost a month of dating, Greg's desire to be intimate with his girlfriend could be shattered by the one thing he's ashamed of...One Shot, PostBrothers and Sisters R&R.


It was after ten when Greg let himself into Nadine's apartment. Nick had taken him back to the lab after Renee's plane took off to Miami, and he'd waded through an extra six hours of paperwork he definitely didn't want to face the next shift. Now, all he wanted was a cold brew and his hot woman, both of which were waiting for him.

He thought of his sister, how mean and cruel he'd been, and okay, maybe he had gone a tad overboard but he was her big brother; he was entitled to protect her. He knew she'd forgiven him, and he knew she was the reason that Nick was wearing such a big grin on his face, in more ways than one. Those other ways were simply ways he didn't want to think about.

Now as he threw down his coat and his keys onto Nadine's counter, he crept cautiously to her bedroom, and saw she stretched out on her bed, above the neon orange sheets. She was listening to her iPod at full blast, yet nearly asleep. Just as well, he thought, so he couldn't critique her choice of some Irish fluty crap. Reaching over, he pulled one of the ear-buds out then stood up to undress.

"Hey, sweetie, I didn't hear you come in," Nadine yawned, rolling onto her back. "You got your paperwork done?"

"Yep, and hopefully, I didn't miss anything." Greg tossed his striped button-down shirt aside, stepped out of his jeans next. He didn't take off his white wife-beater he wore underneath the shirt when he stretched out on his stomach beside Nadine.

"Oye, I feel like yuck."

"Aw, poor baby." Nadine immediately sat up, went to straddle Greg in his face down position so she could give him a massage. The feel of his slender back, the rangy muscles underneath made her go all a-tingle, and she wondered if finally, finally, they would consummate their nearly month-long courtship. When they'd first met at Doctor Brown's fundraiser mixer, she could immediately sense the sexual chemistry between them. Yet time and time again, when she'd offered herself up in the most subtle ways possible, so as not to scare him off or be taken for granted herself, he'd turned her down. Well, not turned her down, per se, but she could sense something was up.

Deciding to try a little experiment, Nadine slid her hands under the hem of Greg's shirt, kneading her fingers into the taught firm skin, and as she predicted, he turned over and gave her a kind of 'what the hell do you think you're doing' look.

"Nadine," he began, then stopped. He hadn't hoped their sex life would start like this, but every time he thought of becoming intimate with her, he thought of how beautiful she was, and how ugly he knew his body was. He tried to tell himself that he simply wanted to take things slow with her, but he knew that it was an illusion. There had only been a handful of women in nearly three years he'd been intimate with, and each time one of them left, it left a deeper dent on his pride.

Nadine was absolutely gorgeous and he knew she deserved someone just as pretty.

"Nadine," he tried again, "I don't know…look I like you, a lot, and I don't want you to get your hopes up about me."

"Huh?"

"You're a very attractive woman, and I'm cute, but…there are things about me that some women find unappealing."

"Like your affinity for hard-core punk or your obsession with Hawaiian coffee?"

"No, no, I mean…" Greg sat up, got up off of the bed. He could think well when he was standing up. "I have scars."

"Who doesn't? Everyone in this day and age has been burned by at least one bad relationship."

"Not emotional scars, I mean actual scars."

Nadine cocked her head to the side, considered this. Scars were not something new to her; she was a nurse after all. But a grown man of thirty-one being embarrassed by a few pink lines on his chest was. It made her wonder what had happened that would make him embarrassed about it rather than wanting to show them off in an alpha-male style. Before she could open her mouth to ask the question, Greg beat her to it with the answer.

"Three years ago in May, I was involved in an explosion in the lab. Some volatile substances were placed under the fume hood, they blew up, and I got sent through a glass wall." Greg absently rubbed at his neck where he'd received a small skin graft to replace damaged tissue. "I thought of undergoing some cosmetic surgery to repair some of the burn scars but it would have meant too much time off of work and my insurance wouldn't cover it."

"Show me."

"What?"

Nadine slid over the bed to him, rose up on her knees so she could kiss him. "Show me," she said again.

"Okay."

Turning around, Greg pulled off his shirt. The left side of his back was smooth and tanned, but the right side of from his spine to his shoulder and down to his ribcage was a spider web of dark purple and white lines. It reminded Nadine of heat lightening splitting the sky during the rainy season. The scars themselves were flat yet her medically trained eyes could see he'd needed serious painkillers to help get over those burns. When he turned around to face her, a doleful look on his face, she could also see the dark purple lines she now realized were veins trailing over his right pectoral, down the side of his ribcage, stopping about six inches above the hip bone. Four surgical marks, spaced about two inches apart, slashed over the skin and were raised up ever so slightly in a soft pink hue.

"I had a few skin grafts done, but they didn't take as well as we hoped and the purple…it's leftover bruising from trying to get the circulation going in the area. It is fine now, but the marks are permanent."

_Just like that constant self-consciousness_, Nadine realized. She reached up, feathered her fingers over his scars, heard him suck in a sharp breath. There were nerves here, not just the nerves of the skin being touched, but of her reaction as well.

"I like Greg," she told him, punctuating this with a kiss.

"Greg likes to hear that," he responded, a half smile on his face that didn't quite reach the eyes.

"I like Greg," Nadine repeated, "and these are apart of him. It would be silly of me to be so superficial and turn down such a wonderful man because an accident at work gave you a distinctive look."

Greg laughed at this, and it was genuine. He'd never heard his injury in the line of duty phrased so uniquely or sweetly. It was the first time since he'd been well enough to be intimate with a woman that he hadn't felt embarrassed or pitied by them, or, as happened in one unfortunate instance, had his partner running for the door in disgust. He combed his fingers through Nadine's hair, slid his hands down her symmetrically smooth back.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"Just…thanks. You're the first one not to be weirded out by them."

Nadine smiled, then turned that smile into a mischievous grin as she cocked an eyebrow. "Does this mean we get to wrestle now?"

Rather than respond, Greg simply tackled her onto her bed, kissing her face, her neck, anywhere he could find.

"You betcha."


End file.
